bell cow
n.— «But the goal is always the same, finish early and often. That, meanwhile, is the job of the “bell cow,” a term for the team’s lead runner who’s job it is to jump out early and interrupt another team’s pack.» —“Cross country siblings running the pack” by Justin L. Oliver in Texas A&M University North Texas e-News Nov. 4, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...